Unless you're a food manufacturer that sells direct-to-consumer, the health of your business may well be heavily tied to the fortunes of the retailers that sell your food. The first quarter of the year has delivered a fair amount of news on this topic, signalling changes that will affect Australian food manufacturers.Aussie Farmers Direct goes into administrationFirst was the news that direct-to-door grocery subscription service offered by Aussie Farmers Direct (AFD) would be ending, as the company was going into administration.AFD said in a statement that they can no longer compete with the two major supermarkets and the mass of cheap imported produce. Some former franchisees, however, dispute this explanation, telling news.com.au that ill-considered expansion plans into non-perishables, among other things, contributing more to the company's downfall.

The mid-1990s saw e-commerce explode into the consumer consciousness. At the time, it seemed an unassailable truth that the internet would transform the way business is done - an idea the subsequent bursting of the dot-com bubble seemed to rapidly deflate.But almost 20 years have passed since that low, and now more than ever does the internet seem to embody the lofty expectations those early pioneers expected it would. E-commerce is a huge part of the Australian economy, and it's only going to grow further.In 2018, your business needs an e-commerce division. Here's why.The state of the e-commerce marketUnlike those early days, online shopping is no longer something only the savviest of computer users engage in. Australians spent roughly $24.7 billion on online sales over the twelve months to January 2018, according to the latest NAB Online Retail Sales Index (ORSI) report. This, the report explains further, is equivalent to 7.9 per cent of the spending at bricks-and-mortar retailers in the twelve months to December 2017.